Editing Hildegard of Bingen (section)

==Works==

[[File:07angels-hildegard von bingen.jpg|thumb|''Scivias'' I.6: The Choirs of Angels. From the Rupertsberg manuscript,<ref>[http://www.abtei-st-hildegard.de/?page_id=4721 The Rupertsberg manuscript]</ref> folio 38r.]]

Hildegard's works include three great volumes of visionary theology;<ref>Critical editions of all three of Hildegard's major works have appeared in the ''Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Medievalis'': ''Scivias'' in vols. 43–43A, ''Liber vitae meritorum'' in vol. 90, and ''Liber divinorum operum'' in vol. 92.</ref> a variety of musical compositions for use in the liturgy, as well as the musical morality play {{lang|la|[[Ordo Virtutum]]}}; one of the largest bodies of letters (nearly 400) to survive from the [[Middle Ages]], addressed to correspondents ranging from [[popes]] to [[Holy Roman Emperors|emperors]] to [[abbot]]s and [[abbess]]es, and including records of many of the sermons she preached in the 1160s and 1170s;<ref>Ferrante, Joan. "Correspondent: 'Blessed Is the Speech of Your Mouth'", in ''Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World'', ed. Barbara Newman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), pp. 91–109. The modern critical edition (vols. 91–91b in the Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Medievalis) by L. Van Acker and M. Klaes-Hachmöller lists 390 canonical letters along with 13 letters that appear in different forms in secondary manuscripts. The letters have been translated into English in three volumes: ''The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen'', trans. Joseph L. Baird and Radd K. Ehrman (Oxford University Press, 1994, 1998, and 2004).</ref> two volumes of material on natural medicine and cures;<ref>Hildegard von Bingen, ''Causae et Curae (Holistic Healing)'', trans. by Manfred Pawlik and Patrick Madigan, ed. by Mary Palmquist and John Kulas (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, Inc., 1994); Hildegard von Bingen, ''Physica'', trans. Priscilla Throop (Rochester, Vermont: Healing Arts Press, 1998)</ref><ref name="Glaze" /> an invented language called the {{lang|la|[[Lingua Ignota]]}} ('unknown language');<ref name=":1">Higley, Sarah L. ''Hildegard of Bingen's Unknown Language: An Edition, Translation, and Discussion'' (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 21–22.</ref> and various minor works, including a gospel commentary and two works of hagiography.<ref>Hildegard of Bingen. ''Homilies on the Gospels''. Translated by Beverly Mayne Kienzle (Cistercian Publications, 2011); and Hildegard of Bingen. ''Two Hagiographies: Vita Sancti Rupperti Confessoris and Vita Sancti Dysibodi Episcopi'', ed. C.P. Evans, translated by Hugh Feiss (Louvain and Paris: Peeters, 2010).</ref>

Several manuscripts of her works were produced during her lifetime, including the illustrated Rupertsberg manuscript of her first major work, {{lang|la|[[Scivias]]}}; the [[Dendermonde Codex]], which contains one version of her musical works; and the Ghent manuscript, which was the first fair-copy made for editing of her final theological work, the {{lang|la|[[Liber Divinorum Operum]]}}. At the end of her life, and probably under her initial guidance, all of her works were edited and gathered into the single Riesenkodex manuscript.<ref>[http://www.hs-rm.de/hlb/suchen-finden/sondersammlungen/handschriften-inkunabeln-alte-drucke/der-riesencodex-hildegard-von-bingen/index.html Riesenkodex manuscript] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160319050333/http://www.hs-rm.de/hlb/suchen-finden/sondersammlungen/handschriften-inkunabeln-alte-drucke/der-riesencodex-hildegard-von-bingen/index.html |date=19 March 2016 }}</ref><ref>Albert Derolez, "The Manuscript Transmission of Hildegard of Bingen's Writings," in ''Hildegard of Bingen: The Context of her Thought and Art'', ed. Charles Burnett and Peter Dronke (London: The Warburg Institute, 1998), pp. 22–23; and Michael Embach, ''Die Schriften Hildegards von Bingen: Studien zu ihrer Überlieferung und Rezeption im Mittelalter und in der Frühen Neuzeit'' (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2003), p. 36.</ref> The [[Wiesbaden Codex|Riesenkodex manuscript]] is a collection of 481 folios of vellum bound in pig leather over wooden boards that measure {{convert|45|by|30|cm}}.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Ramirez |first1=Janina |title=The Brave Women Who Saved the Collected Texts of Hildegard of Bingen |url=https://lithub.com/the-brave-women-who-saved-the-collected-texts-of-hildegard-of-bingen/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Lit%20Hub%20Daily:%20March%203%2C%202023&utm_term=lithub_master_list |website=Lithub|date=3 March 2023 }}</ref>

===Visionary theology===
Hildegard's most significant works were her three volumes of visionary theology: {{lang|la|Scivias}} ("Know the Ways", composed 1142–1151), {{lang|la|Liber Vitae Meritorum}} ("Book of Life's Merits" or "Book of the Rewards of Life", composed 1158–1163); and {{lang|la|Liber Divinorum Operum}} ("Book of Divine Works", also known as {{lang|la|De operatione Dei}}, "On God's Activity", begun around 1163 or 1164 and completed around 1172 or 1174). In these volumes, the last of which was completed when she was well into her seventies, Hildegard first describes each vision, whose details are often strange and enigmatic, and then interprets their theological contents in the words of the "voice of the Living Light."<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Beuys |first=Barbara |year=2020 |title=Mit Visionen zur Autorität |magazine=[[Damals]] |language=de |issue=6 |pages=22–29}}</ref>

===={{lang|la|Scivias}}====
[[File:Meister des Hildegardis-Codex 004.jpg|thumb|left|The Church and Mother of the Faithful in Baptism. Illustration to {{lang|la|Scivias}} II.3, fol. 51r from the 20th-century facsimile of the Rupertsberg manuscript, {{Circa|1165}}–1180.]]

With permission from Abbot Kuno of Disibodenberg, she began journaling visions she had (which is the basis for {{lang|la|Scivias}}). {{lang|la|Scivias}} is a contraction of {{lang|la|Sci vias Domini}} ('Know the Ways of the Lord'), and it was Hildegard's first major visionary work, and one of the biggest milestones in her life. Perceiving a divine command to "write down what you see and hear,"<ref>"Protestificatio" ("Declaration") to Hildegard of Bingen, ''Scivias'', translated by Mother Columba Hart and Jane Bishop (Paulist Press, 1990), pp. 59–61.</ref> Hildegard began to record and interpret her visionary experiences. In total, 26 visionary experiences were captured in this compilation.<ref name="ReferenceA" />

{{lang|la|Scivias}} is structured into three parts of unequal length. The first part (six visions) chronicles the order of God's creation: the Creation and Fall of Adam and Eve, the structure of the universe (described as the shape of an "egg"), the relationship between body and soul, God's relationship to his people through the Synagogue, and the choirs of angels. The second part (seven visions) describes the order of redemption: the coming of Christ the Redeemer, the [[Trinity]], the church as the Bride of Christ and the Mother of the Faithful in [[baptism]] and [[confirmation]], the orders of the church, Christ's sacrifice on the cross and the [[Eucharist]], and the fight against the devil. Finally, the third part (thirteen visions) recapitulates the history of salvation told in the first two parts, symbolized as a building adorned with various allegorical figures and virtues. It concludes with the Symphony of Heaven, an early version of Hildegard's musical compositions.<ref>SCIVIAS.</ref>

In early 1148, a commission was sent by the Pope to [[Disibodenberg]] to find out more about Hildegard and her writings. The commission found that the visions were authentic and returned to the Pope, with a portion of the {{lang|la|Scivias}}. Portions of the uncompleted work were read aloud to [[Pope Eugenius III]] at the Synod of Trier in 1148, after which he sent Hildegard a letter with his blessing.<ref>Letter 4 in ''The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen'', translated by Joseph L. Baird and Radd K. Ehrman (Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 34–35.</ref> This blessing was later construed as papal approval for all of Hildegard's wide-ranging theological activities.<ref>Van Engen, John. "Letters and the Public Persona of Hildegard," in ''Hildegard von Bingen in ihrem historischen Umfeld'', ed. [[Alfred Haverkamp]] (Mainz: Trierer Historische Forschungen, 2000), pp. 375–418; and [[Kathryn Kerby-Fulton]], "Hildegard of Bingen", in ''Medieval Holy Women in the Christian Tradition'', c. 1100–c. 1500, ed. Alastair Minnis and Rosalynn Voaden (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 343–69, at pp. 350–52.</ref> Towards the end of her life, Hildegard commissioned a richly decorated manuscript of {{lang|la|Scivias}} (the Rupertsberg Codex); although the original has been lost since its evacuation to Dresden for safekeeping in 1945, its images are preserved in a hand-painted facsimile from the 1920s.<ref name="Rupertsberg MS images" />

===={{lang|la|Liber Vitae Meritorum}}====
In her second volume of visionary theology, {{lang|la|Liber Vitae Meritorum}}, composed between 1158 and 1163, after she had moved her community of nuns into independence at the Rupertsberg in Bingen, Hildegard tackled the moral life in the form of dramatic confrontations between the virtues and the vices. She had already explored this area in her musical morality play, {{lang|la|Ordo Virtutum}}, and the "Book of the Rewards of Life" takes up the play's characteristic themes. Each vice, although ultimately depicted as ugly and grotesque, nevertheless offers alluring, seductive speeches that attempt to entice the unwary soul into their clutches. Standing in humankind's defence, however, are the sober voices of the Virtues, powerfully confronting every vicious deception.<ref>Hildegard of Bingen. ''The Book of the Rewards of Life''. translated by Bruce W. Hozeski (Oxford University Press), 1994.</ref>

Amongst the work's innovations is one of the earliest descriptions of purgatory as the place where each soul would have to work off its debts after death before entering heaven.<ref>Newman, Barbara. "Hildegard of Bingen and the 'Birth of Purgatory'," ''Mystics Quarterly'' 19 (1993): 90–97.</ref> Hildegard's descriptions of the possible punishments there are often gruesome and grotesque, which emphasize the work's moral and pastoral purpose as a practical guide to the life of true penance and proper virtue.<ref>Newman, Barbara. "'Sibyl of the Rhine': Hildegard's Life and Times," in ''Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World'', ed. Barbara Newman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), pp. 1–29, at pp. 17–19.</ref>

===={{lang|la|Liber Divinorum Operum}}====
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Hildegard's last and grandest visionary work, {{lang|la|Liber divinorum operum}}, had its genesis in one of the few times she experienced something like an ecstatic loss of consciousness. As she described it in an autobiographical passage included in her {{lang|la|Vita}}, sometime in about 1163, she received "an extraordinary mystical vision" in which was revealed the "sprinkling drops of sweet rain" that she stated [[John the Evangelist]] experienced when he wrote, "In the beginning was the Word" (John 1:1).{{efn|Though [[John the Evangelist]] is traditionally considered the author of the [[Gospel of John]], modern scholarship considers that the gospel is anonymously authored.}} Hildegard perceived that this Word was the key to the "Work of God", of which humankind is the pinnacle. The ''Book of Divine Works'', therefore, became in many ways an extended explication of the prologue to the Gospel of John.<ref>"The Life of Hildegard", II.16, in ''Jutta & Hildegard: The Biographical Sources'', translated by Anna Silvas (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), 179; Dronke, Peter. ''Women Writers of the Middle Ages'' (Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 162–63.</ref>

The ten visions of this work's three parts are cosmic in scale, to illustrate various ways of understanding the relationship between God and his creation. Often, that relationship is established by grand allegorical female figures representing Divine Love ({{lang|la|Caritas}}) or Wisdom ({{lang|la|Sapientia}}). The first vision opens the work with a salvo of poetic and visionary images, swirling about to characterize God's dynamic activity within the scope of his work within the history of salvation. The remaining three visions of the first part introduce the image of a human being standing astride the spheres that make up the universe and detail the intricate relationships between the human as microcosm and the universe as macrocosm. This culminates in the final chapter of Part One, Vision Four with Hildegard's commentary on the prologue to the Gospel of John (John 1:1–14), a direct rumination on the meaning of "In the beginning was the Word". The single vision that constitutes the whole of Part Two stretches that rumination back to the opening of Genesis, and forms an extended commentary on the seven days of the creation of the world told in Genesis 1–2:3. This commentary interprets each day of creation in three ways: literal or cosmological; allegorical or ecclesiological (i.e. related to the church's history); and moral or tropological (i.e. related to the soul's growth in virtue). Finally, the five visions of the third part take up again the building imagery of {{lang|la|Scivias}} to describe the course of salvation history. The final vision (3.5) contains Hildegard's longest and most detailed prophetic program of the life of the church from her own days of "womanish weakness" through to the coming and ultimate downfall of the Antichrist.<ref>St. Hildegard of Bingen, [https://www.hfsbooks.com/catalog/title/?isbn=978-0813231297 ''The Book of Divine Works''], translated by Nathaniel M. Campbell (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2018). {{ISBN|978-0-8132-3129-7}}</ref>

===Music===
{{see also|List of compositions by Hildegard of Bingen}}

Attention in recent decades to women of the medieval [[Catholic Church]] has led to a great deal of popular interest in Hildegard's music. In addition to the {{lang|la|[[Ordo Virtutum]]}}, 69 musical compositions, each with its own original poetic text, survive, and at least four other texts are known, though their musical notation has been lost.<ref>Hildegard of Bingen. ''Symphonia'', ed. Barbara Newman (2nd Ed.; Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988, 1998).</ref> This is one of the largest repertoires among medieval composers.

{{Listen|image=none|help=no|filename=O frondens 2.ogg|title=''O frondens virga''|format=[[Ogg]]}}
One of her better-known works, {{lang|la|Ordo Virtutum}} (''Play of the Virtues''), is a [[morality play]]. It is uncertain when some of Hildegard's compositions were composed, though the {{lang|la|Ordo Virtutum}} is thought to have been composed as early as 1151.<ref>Flanagan, Sabina. ''Hildegard of Bingen, 1098–1179: A Visionary Life'' (London: Routledge, 1989), p. 102.</ref> It is an independent Latin morality play with music (82 songs); it does not supplement or pay homage to the Mass or the Office of a certain feast. It is, in fact, the earliest known surviving musical drama that is not attached to a [[liturgy]].<ref name="Burkholder, J. Peter 2006" />

The {{lang|la|Ordo virtutum}} would have been performed within Hildegard's monastery by and for her select community of noblewomen and nuns. It was probably performed as a manifestation of the theology Hildegard delineated in the {{lang|la|Scivias}}. The play serves as an allegory of the Christian story of sin, confession, repentance, and forgiveness. Notably, it is the female Virtues who restore the fallen to the community of the faithful, not the male Patriarchs or Prophets. This would have been a significant message to the nuns in Hildegard's convent. Scholars assert that the role of the Devil would have been played by Volmar, while Hildegard's nuns would have played the parts of Anima (the human souls) and the Virtues.<ref>Audrey Ekdahl Davidson. "Music and Performance: Hildegard of Bingen's Ordo Virtutum." ''The Ordo Virtutum of Hildegard of Bingen: Critical Studies'', (Kalamazoo, MI: Western Michigan University, 1992), pp. 1–29.</ref> The devil's part is entirely spoken or shouted, with no musical setting. All other characters sing in monophonic plainchant. This includes patriarchs, prophets, a happy soul, an unhappy soul, and a penitent soul along with 16 virtues (including mercy, innocence, chastity, obedience, hope, and faith).<ref>{{Cite web |title=Hildegard von Bingen Biography |url=https://www.singers.com/bio/4103 |access-date=14 May 2020 |website=www.singers.com}}</ref><ref>Gillespie, Charles. 2024. ''Illumination and Sonic Synesthesia: Present and Absent Ornamentation in Hildegard von Bingen.'' In Steven Okey and Katherine G.  Schmidt, eds. Theology and Media(tion) 2024. NY: Orbis Books. pp. 170–181. </ref>

In addition to the {{lang|la|Ordo Virtutum}}, Hildegard composed many liturgical songs that were collected into a cycle called the {{lang|la|Symphonia armoniae celestium revelationum}}. The songs from the Symphonia are set to Hildegard's own text and range from antiphons, hymns, and sequences (such as ''[[Columba Aspexit]]''), to responsories.<ref>Maddocks, Fiona. ''Hildegard of Bingen: The Woman of Her Age'' (New York: Doubleday, 2001), p. 194.</ref> Her music is [[monophony|monophonic]], consisting of exactly one melodic line.<ref>Newman, Barbara. ''Voice of the Living Light'' (California: University of California Press, 1998), p. 150.</ref> Its style has been said to be characterized by soaring melodies that can push the boundaries of traditional Gregorian chant and to stand outside the normal practices of monophonic monastic chant.<ref name="holsinger">Holsinger, Bruce. "The Flesh of the Voice: Embodiment and the Homoerotics of Devotion in the Music of Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179), "Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 19 (Autumn, 1993): pp. 92–125.</ref> Researchers are also exploring ways in which it may be viewed in comparison with her contemporaries, such as [[Hermannus Contractus]].<ref>See Jennifer Bain, "Hildegard, Hermannus and Late Chant Style," ''Journal of Music Theory'', 2008, vol. 52.</ref> Another feature of Hildegard's music that both reflects the 12th-century evolution of chant, and pushes that evolution further, is that it is highly [[melismatic]], often with recurrent melodic units. Scholars such as [[Margot Fassler]], Marianne Richert Pfau, and Beverly Lomer also note the intimate relationship between music and text in Hildegard's compositions, whose rhetorical features are often more distinct than is common in 12th-century chant.<ref>Margot Fassler. "Composer and Dramatist: 'Melodious Singing and the Freshness of Remorse,'" ''Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World'', ed. Barbara Newman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 149–75; Marianna Richert-Pfau, "Mode and Melody Types in Hildegard von Bingen's Symphonia," ''Sonus'' 11 (1990): 53–71; Beverly Lomer, ''Music, Rhetoric and the Sacred Feminine'' (Saarbrücken, Germany: Verlag Dr. Müller, 2009) and eadem, "Hildegard of Bingen: Music, Rhetoric and the Divine Feminine," in ''Journal of the International Alliance of Women and Music'', vol. 18, No. 2, 2012. See also Lomer's discussion of "The Theory and Rhetoric of Hildegard's Music," in the International Society for Hildegard von Bingen Studies' [http://www.hildegard-society.org/p/music.html#Theory_and_Rhetoric online edition of Hildegard's ''Symphonia''].</ref> As with most medieval chant notation, Hildegard's music lacks any indication of tempo or rhythm; the surviving manuscripts employ late German style notation, which uses very ornamental [[neumes]].<ref>See the facsimile of her music now freely available on [http://imslp.org/wiki/Symphonia_et_Ordo_virtutum_%28Hildegard%29 IMSLP].</ref> The reverence for the Virgin Mary reflected in music shows how deeply influenced and inspired Hildegard of Bingen and her community were by the Virgin Mary and the saints.<ref>Butcher, Carmen Acevedo. ''Hildegard of Bingen: A Spiritual Reader'' (Massachusetts: Paraclete Press, 2007), p. 27; see also Beverly Lomer, "Hildegard of Bingen: Music, Rhetoric and the Divine Feminine," in ''Journal of the International Alliance of Women and Music'', vol. 18, No. 2, 2012.</ref>

===Scientific and medicinal writings===
[[File:Hildegard of bingen and nuns.jpg|thumb|Hildegard of Bingen and her nuns]]
Hildegard's medicinal and scientific writings, although thematically complementary to her ideas about nature expressed in her visionary works, are different in focus and scope. Neither claim to be rooted in her visionary experience and its divine authority. Rather, they spring from her experience helping in and then leading the monastery's herbal garden and infirmary, as well as the theoretical information she likely gained through her wide-ranging reading in the monastery's library.<ref name="Glaze">Florence Eliza Glaze, "Medical Writer: 'Behold the Human Creature,'" in ''Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World'', ed. Barbara Newman (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1998), pp. 125–48.</ref> As she gained practical skills in diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment, she combined physical treatment of physical diseases with holistic methods centered on "spiritual healing".<ref name="Sweet">Sweet, V. (1999). "Hildegard of Bingen and the greening of medieval medicine". ''Bulletin of the History of Medicine'', 73(3), pp. 381–403. ''Project MUSE'', doi:10.1353/bhm.1999.0140</ref> She became well known for her healing powers involving the practical application of tinctures, herbs, and precious stones.<ref>Maddocks, Fiona. ''Hildegard of Bingen: The Woman of Her Age'' (New York: Doubleday, 2001), p. 155.</ref> She combined these elements with a theological notion ultimately derived from Genesis: all things put on earth are for the use of humans.<ref>Hozeski, Bruce W. ''Hildegard's Healing Plants: From Her Medieval Classic Physica'' (Massachusetts: [[Beacon Press]], 2001), pp. xi–xii</ref> In addition to her hands-on experience, she also gained medical knowledge, including elements of her humoral theory, from traditional Latin texts.<ref name=Sweet/>

Hildegard catalogued both her theory and practice in two works. The first, {{lang|la|Physica}}, contains nine books that describe the scientific and medicinal properties of various plants, stones, fish, reptiles, and animals. This document is also thought to contain the first recorded reference of the use of hops in beer as a preservative.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Kitsock |first=Greg |title=Hops: The beer ingredient (most) drinkers love |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/hops-the-beer-ingredient-most-drinkers-love/2014/02/10/fd5daab0-8f57-11e3-84e1-27626c5ef5fb_story.html |newspaper=The Washington Post}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Oliver |first=Garrett |title=The Oxford Companion to Beer |date=9 September 2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=435}}</ref> The second, {{lang|la|Causae et Curae}}, is an exploration of the human body, its connections to the rest of the natural world, and the causes and cures of various diseases.<ref name="medical">Hildegard von Bingen, ''Causae et Curae (Holistic Healing)'', trans. by Manfred Pawlik and Patrick Madigan, ed. by Mary Palmquist and John Kulas (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, Inc., 1994); Hildegard von Bingen, ''Physica'', trans. Priscilla Throop (Rochester, Vermont: Healing Arts Press, 1998).</ref> Hildegard documented various medical practices in these books, including the use of bleeding and home remedies for many common ailments. She also explains remedies for common agricultural injuries such as burns, fractures, dislocations, and cuts.<ref name=Sweet/> Hildegard may have used the books to teach assistants at the monastery. These books are historically significant because they show areas of medieval medicine that were not well documented because their practitioners, mainly women, rarely wrote in Latin. Her writings were commentated on by [[Mélanie Lipinska]], a Polish scientist.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Walsh |first=James |url=https://archive.org/details/OldTimeMakersOfMedicine |title=Old Time Makers of Medicine |publisher=Fordham University Press |year=1911 |location=New York |pages=[https://archive.org/details/OldTimeMakersOfMedicine/page/n206 194]–201}}.</ref>

In addition to its wealth of practical evidence, {{lang|la|Causae et Curae}} is also noteworthy for its organizational scheme. Its first part sets the work within the context of the creation of the cosmos and then humanity as its summit, and the constant interplay of the human person as microcosm both physically and spiritually with the macrocosm of the universe informs all of Hildegard's approach.<ref name=Glaze/> Her hallmark is to emphasize the vital connection between the "green" health of the natural world and the holistic health of the human person. {{lang|la|[[Viriditas]]}}, or greening power, was thought to sustain human beings and could be manipulated by adjusting the balance of elements within a person.<ref name="Sweet" /> Thus, when she approached medicine as a type of gardening, it was not just as an analogy. Rather, Hildegard understood the plants and elements of the garden as direct counterparts to the humors and elements within the human body, whose imbalance led to illness and disease.<ref name=Sweet/>

The nearly three hundred chapters of the second book of {{lang|la|Causae et Curae}} "explore the etiology, or causes, of disease as well as human sexuality, psychology, and physiology."<ref name=Glaze/> In this section, she gives specific instructions for bleeding based on various factors, including gender, the phase of the moon (bleeding is best done when the moon is waning), the place of disease (use veins near diseased organ or body part) or prevention (big veins in arms), and how much blood to take (described in imprecise measurements, like "the amount that a thirsty person can swallow in one gulp"). She even includes bleeding instructions for animals to keep them healthy. In the third and fourth sections, Hildegard describes treatments for malignant and minor problems and diseases according to the humoral theory, again including information on animal health. The fifth section is about diagnosis and prognosis, which includes instructions to check the patient's blood, pulse, urine, and stool.<ref name=Sweet/> Finally, the sixth section documents a lunar horoscope to provide an additional means of prognosis for both disease and other medical conditions, such as conception and the outcome of pregnancy.<ref name=Glaze/> For example, she indicates that a waxing moon is good for human conception and is also good for sowing seeds for plants (sowing seeds is the plant equivalent of conception).<ref name=Sweet/> Elsewhere, Hildegard is even said to have stressed the value of boiling drinking water in an attempt to prevent infection.<ref name="encyclopedia">"Hildegard of Bingen." Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2004.</ref>

As Hildegard elaborates the medical and scientific relationship between the human microcosm and the macrocosm of the universe, she often focuses on interrelated patterns of four: "the four elements (fire, air, water, and earth), the four seasons, the four humors, the four zones of the earth, and the four major winds."<ref name=Glaze/> Although she inherited the basic framework of [[humorism|humoral theory]] from ancient medicine, Hildegard's conception of the hierarchical inter-balance of the four humors (blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile) was unique, based on their correspondence to "superior" and "inferior" elements – blood and phlegm corresponding to the "celestial" elements of fire and air, and the two biles corresponding to the "terrestrial" elements of water and earth. Hildegard understood the disease-causing imbalance of these humors to result from the improper dominance of the subordinate humors. This disharmony reflects that introduced by Adam and Eve in the Fall, which for Hildegard marked the indelible entrance of disease and humoral imbalance into humankind.<ref name=Glaze/> As she writes in {{lang|la|Causae et Curae}} c. 42:

{{blockquote|It happens that certain men suffer diverse illnesses. This comes from the phlegm which is superabundant within them. For if man had remained in paradise, he would not have had the {{lang|la|flegmata}} within his body, from which many evils proceed, but his flesh would have been whole and without dark humor [{{lang|la|livor}}]. However, because he consented to evil and relinquished good, he was made into a likeness of the earth, which produces good and useful herbs, as well as bad and useless ones, and which has in itself both good and evil moistures. From tasting evil, the blood of the sons of Adam was turned into the poison of semen, out of which the sons of man are begotten. And therefore their flesh is ulcerated and permeable [to disease]. These sores and openings create a certain storm and smoky moisture in men, from which the {{lang|la|flegmata}} arise and coagulate, which then introduce diverse infirmities to the human body. All this arose from the first evil, which man began at the start, because if Adam had remained in paradise, he would have had the sweetest health, and the best dwelling-place, just as the strongest balsam emits the best odor; but on the contrary, man now has within himself poison and phlegm and diverse illnesses.<ref>Quoted in Glaze, "Medical Writer: 'Behold the Human Creature,'" p. 136.</ref>}}

=== {{lang|la|Lingua ignota}} and {{lang|la|Litterae ignotae}} ===
[[File:Litterae ignotae.png|thumb|right|Alphabet by Hildegard von Bingen, Litterae ignotae, which she used for her language {{lang|la|[[Lingua Ignota]]}}]]

Hildegard also invented an [[constructed script|alternative alphabet]]. {{lang|la|Litterae ignotae}} ('Alternate Alphabet') was another work and was more or less a secret code, or even an intellectual code – much like a modern crossword puzzle today.

Hildegard's {{lang|la|[[Lingua ignota]]}} ('unknown language') consisted of a series of invented words that corresponded to an eclectic list of nouns. The list is approximately 1,000 nouns; there are no other parts of speech.<ref name=":2">Ferzoco, George''.'' (2014). "Notes on Hildegard's 'Unknown' Language and Writing." In ''A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen,'' p. 318. Leiden: Brill. Accessed 7 May 2021. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004260719_015.</ref> The two most important sources for the {{lang|la|Lingua ignota}} are the Wiesbaden, Hessische Landesbibliothek 2 (nicknamed the Riesenkodex)<ref name=":2" /> and the Berlin manuscript.<ref name=":1" /> In both manuscripts, medieval German and Latin glosses are written above Hildegard's invented words. The Berlin manuscript contains additional Latin and German glosses not found in the Riesenkodex.<ref name=":1" /> The first two words of the {{Lang|la|Lingua}} as copied in the Berlin manuscript are ''aigonz'' (German, {{lang|de|goth}}; Latin, {{lang|la|deus}}; English, ''god'') and ''aleganz'' (German, {{lang|de|engel}}; Latin, {{lang|la|angelus}}; English, ''angel'').''<ref>As translated in Higley, ''Hildegard of Bingen's Unknown Language: An Edition, Translation, and Discussion'' (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 21, 205.</ref>

Barbara Newman believes that Hildegard used her {{lang|la|Lingua ignota}} to increase solidarity among her nuns.<ref>Barbara J. Newman, "Introduction" to Hildegard, ''Scivias'', p. 13.</ref> Sarah Higley disagrees and notes that there is no evidence of Hildegard teaching the language to her nuns. She suggests that the language was not intended to remain a secret; rather, the presence of words for mundane things may indicate that the language was for the whole abbey and perhaps the larger monastic world.<ref name=":1" /> Higley believes that "the Lingua is a linguistic distillation of the philosophy expressed in her three prophetic books: it represents the cosmos of divine and human creation and the sins that flesh is heir to."<ref name=":1" />

The text of her writing and compositions reveals Hildegard's use of this form of modified medieval Latin, encompassing many invented, conflated, and abridged words.<ref name="Ruether, Rosemary Radford 2002" /> Because of her inventions of words for her lyrics and use of a constructed script, many [[conlang]]ers look upon her as a medieval precursor.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=GkuK53bU4_UC ''Hildegard of Bingen's Unknown Language: An Edition, Translation, and Discussion''], ed. Sarah Higley (2007)</ref>